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312 dixon hill private investigator

Door to private investigator Dixon Hill's office

The Big Goodbye holodeck

Dixon Hill's San Francisco

Dixon Hill office

Dixon Hill's office

The Dixon Hill series was a novel series written by author Tracy Torme, and featured private detective Dixon Hill, who first appeared in the short story The Big Good-Bye, published on Earth in the pulp magazine Amazing Detective Stories in 1934.

The Dixon Hill series[]

The Black Orchid was made into a film, Dixon Hill and the Black Orchid sometime before the 22nd century. The series was published to Federation holosuites by Broht & Forrester in the 24th century. (ENT: "Cogenitor"; VOY: "Author, Author")

The Big Good-Bye[]

Dixon Hill nightclub bar

The nightclub scene in The Big Good-Bye

Picard firing a Tommy gun

Jean-Luc Picard (as Dixon Hill) wields a Tommy gun in The Big Good-Bye

As in all Dixon Hill holo-novels, The Big Good-Bye allowed the user to play the private investigator character of Dixon Hill in the San Francisco of 1941.

The episode even inspired at least one novel, 2002's Star Trek: The Next Generation A Hard Rain by Dean Wesley Smith. In the novel, Picard has to enter the holodeck to locate the "Heart of the Adjuster" or else the Enterprise will be destroyed.

The Long Dark Tunnel[]

This program was listed on the exercise menu in 2365, with a program code list number of 03-936. (TNG: "The Emissary", okudagram)

The (Curse of the) Black Orchid[]

This program was listed on the exercise menu in 2365, with a program code list number of 02-998. (TNG: "The Emissary", okudagram)

A section of this story was quoted by Data in the script for "The Big Goodbye" -

It was raining in the city of Angels -- a hard rain -- almost hard enough to wash the slime from the streets. But it never does. When the rain stops, the boulevard dries and the snakes once again slink from their holes. That's when my door opens and the helpless, the desperate, walk through with a heart full of hurt and a pocket full of nothing. It unearthed half-forgotten feelings the same way it dug up sleeping bones in shallow unmarked graves. It was that kind of day.

Whalen identified this quote as coming from Chapter Three of the story. [1]

The Pallid Son[]

The Pallid Son

The novel The Pallid Son

In 2024, this novel was published by the Bailey Publishing Press. Renée Picard was reading a copy of this novel while relaxing in the Jackson Roykirk Plaza.

In the novel, Dixon Hill was hired by the members of the Titan Club. They were being hunted down and killed by unknown assailants. Hill was joined in his case by an enigmatic figure known only as the Pallid Son. (PIC: "Watcher")

The cover for this novel was designed by Geoffrey Mandel. [2]

Unspecified[]

  • In 2365 (on stardate 42859.2), Captain Picard once again took the role of Dixon Hill, again accompanied by Data, in order to flee Lwaxana Troi's manhunt. Lwaxana, however, eventually located him in Rex's Bar, but became infatuated with the owner. (TNG: "Manhunt")

A line cut from the script identified the program as "The Long Dark Tunnel". [3]

  • In 2367 (on stardate 44502.7), Picard introduced Guinan to the Dixon Hill program, where she played his cousin Gloria. Guinan, however, was not impressed. (TNG: "Clues")

Program characters[]

In a deleted scene from Star Trek: First Contact, the character Buster was portrayed by James Mapes.

Unnamed characters[]

Story elements[]

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

Background information[]

For "Manhunt", all the holographic environments of the Dixon Hill series, as portrayed in that episode, were located on Paramount Stage 16.

A selection of set dressing items from Trip Tucker's quarters It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay featured a few data discs, three of which were labeled as Dixon Hill holonovels. However, it's unclear if these made it on-screen. [4](X)

Apocrypha[]

In the Pocket TNG novel Infiltrator, it's mentioned that "new" Dixon Hill adventures, lost in the Eugenics Wars, were still being discovered by librarians in the 2360s either having been mislabeled or stored in obscure archives. Picard instructed the Enterprise's computer to alert him whenever such works had been found and added into the Federation database.

In the novel Requiem, Picard uses the name "Dixon Hill" as an alias after he is accidentally transported back in time to the planet Cestus III in the year 2267.

In the second issue of the Doctor Who crossover comic Star Trek: The Next Generation - Doctor Who: Assimilation², the Enterprise's holodecks received a systems upgrade and with it, a new Dixon Hill adventure, which Picard saved under "Picard Dixon Hill Seven". The upgrades included new smells. Picard then invites Riker, Data and Dr. Crusher to test-run it for him where once inside, they head for a restaurant when they hear the TARDIS materializing and mistake it for a bug in the upgrade. In the restaurant, they meet the Eleventh Doctor and his companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, who mistake the program to actually be 1940s San Francisco, while Riker, Data and Dr. Crusher mistake them to be holodeck characters and that the holodeck was malfunctioning again. Riker then ends the program and they're surprised to see the TARDIS and its three occupants are still present.

External link[]

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